Aside from the time spent onstage, life on the road can be a bit mundane. Hanging around in airports and killing time at venues and the surrounding city can leave a lot of time to devise some crafty ideas like this outrageous prank Johnny Christ pulled on Synyster Gates during Avenged Sevenfold's European tour.

In the video above, Christ runs through the entire scheme, which is complete with video and audio of the prank at hand as well as commentary from the bassist while the mayhem unfolds. He explains how he and Gates had been pranking each other along the tour, upping the ante each time and it may be Christ who came out on top.

With the help of A7X's monitor engineer Bruce Danz, Christ concocted a sinister plan (get it?) to alter Gates' voice for his backing vocals in "Little Piece of Heaven." The pitch was raised, bringing the vocal to the "chipmunk" level, made famous by the Alvin and the Chipmunks cartoon. The catch? Only those with an in-ear monitor were able to hear the effect, not the crowd!

We're treated to the full hilarity of the prank, as Gates takes the mic, puzzled and frustrated at what's going on with his voice. Realizing he's the butt of the joke, he eventually ditches the microphone after trying out another onstage to no avail. As Christ noted, the band is laughing and interacting with each other onstage, but the crowd is wholly unaware as to why and were probably left wondering why Syn abandoned the typical backing vocal lines in favor of seemingly random cursing.

We're sure the war is far from over, so we'll be keeping an eye out for any hijinks that may be on the horizon while Avenged Sevenfold hit the road again continue their North American run throughout the summer while on tour with Metallica, making festival appearances and headlining dates of their own. Click here for a list of A7X tour dates.